Around 1 PM, Lin Zhiyan finally completed the keyframes for the first cut.
"Good work. Go eat first," Akimoto To said, offering Lin Zhiyan the lunch he'd just bought before taking the keyframes from him.
Compared to the second cut, the first cut didn't require much drawing. Yet to finish it in just over two hours was a testament to Lin Zhiyan's skill.
The first keyframe had taken ten minutes to complete, as he was still getting familiar with the process. But from the second keyframe onward, each one took less than ten minutes.
The only question was whether these keyframes, completed in such a short time, would pass muster with the animation supervisor.
Akimoto To flipped through them quickly. No matter how he looked at them, he felt Lin Zhiyan had done an excellent job. But he was just a production assistant, not a professional animation supervisor, so he couldn't be certain if the keyframes would actually pass.
He'd have to show them to Kazuchika Kise, the animation supervisor, to be sure.
"By the way," Akimoto To suddenly remembered, "I need to put your name down as the keyframe artist. Could you tell me your name now?"
"I've already written it down," Lin Zhiyan said, opening his lunch box and taking a bite.
"Oh, let me see."
Akimoto To lowered his head and checked the appropriate section. Soon, he couldn't help but mutter under his breath, "Lin Zhiyan? How come I've never heard of this person before?"
Then again, maybe he just hadn't watched enough anime.
Now that Lin Zhiyan had demonstrated the skills to draw keyframes, it would be rude to admit he'd never heard of him and ask which works he'd worked on. After all, this wasn't an interview; they'd just happened to meet and Lin was helping him out.
But then again...
"What exactly is Mr. Hayashi doing at IG?"
He couldn't shake the feeling that a layer of mystery surrounded Lin Zhiyan. But as a production coordinator, his priority was ensuring the work was completed on time; everything else was secondary.
The most important thing now was to have Lin Zhiyan's finished keyframes checked. There would be plenty of time to ask questions later.
Kazuchika Kise didn't have any more interviews that afternoon. Even though it was Sunday, he didn't go home to rest. After lunch, he returned to his workstation and quietly resumed his work.
However, despite not encountering any difficulties with his tasks, he found it hard to focus. His mind kept drifting to Lin Zhiyan's situation.
"How did we end up missing each other like this?" he wondered, letting out a silent sigh.
Just then, Akimoto To, the production assistant, approached his workstation with a cut bag in hand.
"Kise-san, could you please check this cut first?" Akimoto To asked, presenting the bag with both hands.
"Check it first?" Kazuchika Kise frowned. "Has Nishikubo-san already reviewed it?"
Nishikubo Tatsuhiro was the director of Ghost in the Shell. After a key animator finished their work, the director would typically review it first, followed by the animation supervisor's inspection.
However, the director and the animation supervisor focused on different aspects: the director oversaw the overall content, while the animation supervisor scrutinized the specific drawings.
Ultimately, whether a keyframe passed or was rejected for revision depended on the animation supervisor's decision.
Akimoto To wasn't new to his role as production assistant. He wouldn't bypass the director and directly submit keyframes to Kazuchika Kise.
He nodded. "That's already been checked."
"Alright."
Kazuchika Kise didn't press further. He took the cut bag, opened it, and pulled out the keyframes to begin inspecting. But he quickly realized something was amiss. "Lin Zhiyan?"
"Does Kise-sensei know this key animator, Lin Zhiyan?" Akimoto To couldn't help but ask.
Kise didn't immediately answer. Instead, he asked how Akimoto To had come to know Lin Zhiyan, and why he'd been asked to draw keyframes for Ghost in the Shell.
This wasn't strictly within Kise's purview, but as the head of the Second Division—the division responsible for Ghost in the Shell—he had the right to ask. Akimoto To, naturally, had no choice but to explain everything in detail.
Kise had initially wondered if it was a case of mistaken identity. But after hearing Akimoto To's account, he realized the truth.
It wasn't a case of mistaken identity. This was the very same Lin Zhiyan who had skipped his interview.
"Ah, so that's where he went," Kise muttered, his lips twitching slightly. Now he understood why Lin Zhiyan had vanished during the interview—he'd never intended to participate properly in the first place.
Instead of anger, a faint glimmer of satisfaction stirred in Kise's heart.
The animation industry is full of unconventional eccentrics. Once you get used to them, it doesn't matter. As long as they have talent, who cares about their quirks?
Other companies have even had key animators get into physical altercations with their supervisors. In any other industry, they'd have been fired immediately, but here they still manage to thrive.
If the drawings I saw earlier were truly by Lin Zhiyan, skipping the interview is a non-issue.
Akimoto To, however, remained completely unaware of the interview situation, leading to a natural misunderstanding of Kazuchika Kise's words.
He looked enlightened. "So Mr. Hayashi came to see you, Mr. Kise? Ah, that explains it. I was wondering why he'd show up at our IG offices."
Kazuchika Kise paused, momentarily stunned.
Realizing Akimoto To had misunderstood, he decided not to clarify. Instead, he began pondering how to handle the keyframe artwork for this scene.
The illustrations attached to Lin Zhiyan's resume had been astonishing, but they were essentially watercolor illustrations.
Illustration and animation keyframes are fundamentally different concepts.
While creating excellent illustrations requires a high level of artistic skill—animation keyframe artists must at least match the skill level of character designers to handle illustrations—it doesn't mean that someone skilled in illustration can automatically become a competent keyframe artist.
The essence of animation keyframes lies in motion, while illustrations do not require movement.
Someone skilled in illustration can typically become a competent key animator quickly, but while illustration can rely on innate talent, animation keyframes demand accumulated experience.
Without honing one's skills as an in-betweener, it's impossible to become a qualified key animator. Without extensive involvement in animation keyframe work and enduring the brutal corrections of the animation supervisor a thousand times, it's impossible to become an exceptional key animator.
Don't be fooled by some celebrated animators who seemingly debuted as key animators, without any prior experience as animators. In reality, this is often because animators' status is so lowly that their names are omitted during video editing, not because they truly lack experience as animators.
In short, he didn't believe Lin Zhiyan could truly handle the keyframes for Ghost in the Shell. He suspected the young man was simply relying on his strong drawing foundation, assuming he could handle keyframes.
Now, he had to decide whether to strictly correct Lin Zhiyan's work according to normal standards, delivering a harsh blow to make him face reality, or to be more lenient, merely making him understand that none of his keyframes met the standards.
Or perhaps he should take extra time to redraw the entire sequence himself, allowing Lin Zhiyan to see the gap between his work and that of a professional key animator?